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saveoursubways (SOS)

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Rainforest said:
Continuing Durham's highway 2 BRT along Ellesmere towards STC might make sense - but then, won't the buses run faster on 401, even in mixed traffic?
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Using Ellesmere is indeed Durham's plan. When I asked about speed, I was told this didn't eliminate the possibility of an express service along the 401.
 
http://www.toronto.ca/involved/projects/kingston_road_ea/index.htm

That's the Kingston BRT website. For reference.

Does anyone else think it makes sense to continue till Main station? They are using Danforth after all, which makes Main Station only about a hundred metres from BRT along Danforth. And Danforth has the 27m required width right till Main. Why waste it? On the other hand, Kingston becomes challenging west of Vic Park. So it makes sense to take the ROW west, down Danforth (just as the TTC proposed) and end at Main. Looking at the Streetview images, it makes perfect sense to me. And by bus, we are talking about adding a minute or two at most compared to say transferring at VP and then riding down to Main, in large part because Main Stn. is so close to Danforth.

In the east end, it's never made sense to me to stop at Eglinton. I say take it right into Durham Region (a short tunnel or bridge might be needed to overcome the 401 where Kingston Road transitions to Hwy 2). For any buses accessing UTSC, they can go local in Scarborough for a few km. It's not the end of the world. Likewise, they can use 401 to access STC (with maybe special ramps at Hwy 2 and McCowan or Brimley?). The Ellesmere BRT is not essential to acheiving their goals. I would put that in a phase 2 plan.
 
kEiThZ said:
The Ellesmere BRT is not essential to acheiving their goals. I would put that in a phase 2 plan.
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Nothing in the publicly-presented information on the Durham plan says they are using the Ellesmere BRT - just that they will use Ellesmere.

When they get to staging recommendations in the final reports, I expect that we will find that buses will use the BRT on Ellesmere when it is built, but otherwise will run semi-express along Ellesmere. It sounded fairly clear to me that DRT doesn't see running express into Toronto as being within their purview - I think they expect that GO will take on that role when it withdraws local service from highway 2.
 
^ That makes it a lot easier for SOS. I say that we push to extend the KBRT to Durham and leave out the Ellesmere BRT for now.
 
kEiThZ said:
^ That makes it a lot easier for SOS. I say that we push to extend the KBRT to Durham and leave out the Ellesmere BRT for now.
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Or as I keep suggesting, create one continuous Kingston-Ellesmere BRT route and have Durham buses intercept the service at UTSC. Why are so many here in favor of routing higher-order transit into dead-ends of low-density I don't know, when we could be targeting specific nodes and have high all-day usage.
 
Fresh Start said:
Or as I keep suggesting, create one continuous Kingston-Ellesmere BRT route and have Durham buses intercept the service at UTSC. Why are so many here in favor of routing higher-order transit into dead-ends of low-density I don't know, when we could be targeting specific nodes and have high all-day usage.
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The problem here is what was raised before....the optics of having so many lines covering Scarborough. I agree that a Ellesmere-Military Trail BRT would be ideal for Scarborough and Durham. I wonder if it's politically palatable and valuable enough, regionally, to be pushed for. If enough folks on here can agree that the EBRT is politically viable then I think we could throw it on there.

The Eglinton leg of any BRT or LRT is easy to ditch. Just extend whatever is on Eglinton right to Kingston and that'll fix the problem. Nobody in Scarborough needs to go to Kennedy. It's an artifical hub that exists entirely because the subway and SRT terminate there. Change that situation and Kennedy becomes a lot less important.
 
kEiThZ said:
The problem here is what was raised before....the optics of having so many lines covering Scarborough.
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Well that is why we don't waste funds on things like SELRT or SMLRT. I propose no more than three new BRT routes through all of Scarborough. BRT along Danforth, the SRT corridor, then adjacent Progress, through Centennial grounds, over the 401, and then on Neilson into Malvern; Markham-McCowan Roads (Markham south of Sheppard, McCowan north of Sheppard into York Region); and one continuously along a 17 km stretch of Kingston Road then to SCC via Ellesmere and Military Tr. All of this would cover from more mileage than those two LRT routes and would total hundreds of millions of dollars less to carpet Scarborough in BRT than even the cost to build just 15 measly kms of SELRT (48kms of new BRT ROW x the int'l average of $6 million/km = $288 million vs. $1030 billion for Sheppard light-rail alone). It may cost more than that given inflation, but still that's remarkably affordable. E-W major arteries would do more than fine with just local/express bus services except Sheppard where there's a legitimate case for subway to continue onwards to Agincourt then south into SCC.

kEiThZ said:
I agree that a Ellesmere-Military Trail BRT would be ideal for Scarborough and Durham. I wonder if it's politically palatable and valuable enough, regionally, to be pushed for. If enough folks on here can agree that the EBRT is politically viable then I think we could throw it on there.
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It is not valuable if routed through low-density sprawl (which like up on Sheppard is precisely what the section east of Morningside Ave is). The profitable section is from SCC-UTSC. People want to go the university, to the hospital, to the mall, to job-sites, to civic services, to a major transit hub. Don't think of it as an Ellesmere BRT in isolation. Think of it as composite of a major trunk line from the Beaches to Highland Creek (where transfer to DRT would be possible, right back into the major subway and bus terminal of the borough.

kEiThZ said:
The Eglinton leg of any BRT or LRT is easy to ditch. Just extend whatever is on Eglinton right to Kingston and that'll fix the problem. Nobody in Scarborough needs to go to Kennedy. It's an artifical hub that exists entirely because the subway and SRT terminate there. Change that situation and Kennedy becomes a lot less important.
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Ultimately the Eglinton subway could extend beyond OSC eastwards. Why in the meantime would we waste funds to place LRT tracks down the median where they are not needed? Think about it, at no point will a commuter along Eglinton East be no more than 10 minutes away from a station (OSC Stn, Kennedy Stn, Brimley Stn [B-D extension] or Kingston-Eglinton underground BRT interchange facility). The 34 bus in dual local and express operation all-day, can more than accommodate this area's lower ridership levels by contrast to central Eglinton or demand for the airport. Besides any Markham Road BRT line would most likely run east from Kennedy or Brimley Stns so at least that segment of the corridor would be higher-order.
 
I was going to assume $10M/km. I thought that would cover the cost of construction and any acquisitions that are necessary (which for most TC corridors is pretty negligible).
 
Again, I think an express 401 route would be the best for Ellesmere/Durham BRT. It'd be cheaper, and BRT on Ellesmere is quite unnecessary.
 
Second_in_pie said:
Again, I think an express 401 route would be the best for Ellesmere/Durham BRT. It'd be cheaper, and BRT on Ellesmere is quite unnecessary.
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It benefits Toronto as well though, if we have it on Ellesmere. Also, BRT on the 401 won't necessarily be cheaper unless we take lanes away from traffic. If we're building them, it could be about the same price or only marginally more expensive on Ellesmere. In reality, we aren't talking full blown BRT, just curbside bus lanes.
 
Just a reminder, we really have to settle on a plan soon so that we can actually start advocating for it. One would hope that perhaps we can have some impact on the Eglinton BCA or even construction on Sheppard before it gets going in earnest.
 
Does it have to be a comprehensive plan? Maybe it would be easier to focus on something simple - a mission statement like "SaveOurSubways' goal is to see the Sheppard subway completed through Agincourt to Scarborough Town Centre."

Your arguments could be: Ridership (talk about Sheppard's ridership in relation to other subways around the world), Revenue (STC as a destination; development potential along the route) and Legacy (The SELRT's biggest downside is that it will impose a transfer between the LRT and the Subway that could realistically be in place for generations.)

Now you're focused. You've got a mission statement your whole group can agree upon (probably). And you avoid the potentially perilous trap of getting into arguments about the overall virtues of LRT. Plus, you can sell it as an enhancement to TC (because there's theoretically still room for LRT on Sheppard E).



The other stuff could be secondary.
 
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